The engagement of the audience in a display environment has been the goal of inventors since the origins of art. Significant advances in the displays have been accomplished including cycloramas, integral photography, and holography. Audience participation, as an active part of the environment special effect has never been perfected, and display systems which function independently and in concert, have not been substantially developed until the disclosure of my special effects display device in the parent U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/250,384, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,409. A few inventions have been proposed which have generally been too complicated to be reliable, expensive to manufacture, without sufficient resolution, or sufficient stability to gain any acceptance. None have combined a directional projector and an active, responsive display unit which may be in the control of each member of the audience or used independently.
One technological approach—the presentation of visual images by moving display elements—has a long and crowded history. Following the development of light emitting diodes (LEDs), a large variety of displays, games, audience units and yo-yos have been manufactured, publicly presented and patented. These inventions strobe arrays of individual light elements or pixels as the array is displaced cyclically, producing an image or pattern due to the persistence phenomenon of human vision. Francis Duffy in his U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,235 discloses linear audience unit of LEDs oscillated by a door buzzer electromagnetic actuator. He specifically indicated that a manual actuator may be used. Edwin Berlin in his U.S. Pat. No. 4,160,973 extended the work of Duffy to both 2D & 3D devices using “rotational” or “short-distance oscillatory motion” with extensions of Nipkow's disc television. Berlin also disclosed the use of moving digital memory and electronics and a “single pulse (per cycle) which adjusts the frequency of a clock (controlling the timing of each LED)”. Bill Bell is his U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,044 disclosed a single stationary array of LEDs with “saccadic eye movement” timing with non-claimed references to applications including audience units, tops and bicycles.
Marhan Reysman in his U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,542 discloses a spinning disc toy with a centrifugal switch causing a light to be illuminated. It follows a line of inventions related to tops and yo-yos. Hiner is his U.S. Pat. No. 4,080,753 discloses a toy flying saucer with a centrifugal motion sensor.
The techniques of Duffy, Berlin & Bell were applied to handheld audience units differentiated from the prior art by the detailed centrifugal switch design. Tokimoto is his U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,300 discloses a audience unit with a Hall effect acceleration sensor. Sako in his U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,456 uses an inertial sensor having “a pair of fixed contacts and a moveable contact” to adjust the clock of the display electronics. While inventive and functional, the Sako design remains awkward and requires considerable energy to maintain an image. For these reasons, it is unsuitable for entertainment, marketing and game applications.
At many events from the mid-1980s, these and simpler visual and audio producing items have been combined with non-directional, wireless signals to produce a global special effects. As disclosed in Bell's U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,044, these technologies may be affixed to bicycles and motorized vehicles, to clothing, audience units, yo-yos and other accessories.
Additionally, wireless technologies have been applied to visual and audio producing proximity devices such as dance floors—U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,654, pagers—U.S. Pat. No. 3,865,001, top hats—U.S. Pat. No. 3,749,810, and clothing—U.S. Pat. No. 5,461,188 to produce a global synchrony and pre-programmed or transferred effects.
None of these or the other prior art has successfully addressed the problem of providing low cost, real-time, precision control of audio or visual effects such that an affordable uniform appliance distributed, affixed, attached, accompanying or held by each member of an audience or group would seamlessly, and without error, integrate in a global screen or orchestra in real-time.
None of the prior inventions was capable of independent and concerted three-dimensional visual effects. None permitted the simultaneous registration of all units. Further, a number of other problems have remained including the development of switching methodology which permits a static on-off state, display freedom from inertial changes, a frame of reference and global orientation.
This inventor has a long history of invention in these relative fields of persistence of vision, three dimensional and professional stage, film and event special effects. His U.S. Pat. No. 4,983,031 (1990) discloses a method of data display control and method for the proper display of images to all observers in both directions for projection and LED moving displays—technologies chosen by the U.S. Department of Defense for advanced airspace control. His U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,568 (1988) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,071 (1987) disclose a high speed, low inertial stage scanning system —currently in use by major international touring music and theatre acts. Further background audience display systems are also described in the my parent U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,409.